Month: September 2013

So, over the last few months I have been reading LOTS AND LOTS about Telemetry and what it can do and what it is good for. There are lots of pro’s and con’s I guess. Some say it’s not good for heli’s or 3d etc etc..

I guess you have to want to use it or want pay for it. For me sometimes I’m doing flips rolls and forward flight getting more and more into 3d and better maneuvers. We all know that flight time is key, we all want more, more, more. When I use a timer, sometimes I come down to early sometimes I’m bang on for cell voltage. A good feature to this system is you can monitor Voltage RPM & current ( MAH ) used in flight.
A useful tool for me is to setup the radio and have an alarm to tell me when to land at certain %’s according to the battery pack MAH.. We always want to use the 20% rule but sometimes like I said you come down before or after that..
One of the radio’s I’m planning on buying is the Jeti DS-16 with their ESC’s & their receivers. This will allow me to have all the features I want. IE mah’s used and rpm etc etc.

My initial goal is to learn about it, but for now I’m playing with some on loan equipment. I already have the DX7s radio that is capable of Telemetry. Next was to see what equipment was needed. After googling asking many people about it, then seeing on this forum a member using it in his Goblin 500, I decided to ask questions and look into it. HWAT YOU KNOW, the local hobby guy had a spare battery probe & Tm1000 ( non x version ) that he wasn’t used, so he let me use it..

So off I went home, with the devices, started reading how things are supposed to be connected and wired. I made myself a cable using a Satellite cable & a servo wire, looking up the correct wiring diagram. After binding it and using a test receiver battery & flight battery I was excited to actually see live data on my radio. DAMN NEAT I SAY!!

Pictures with descriptions.

Two units TM1000 & AR7200,

Receiver battery, used to power the AR7200.

TR1000, for iphone or ipad, not sure im going to even try it..

unit’s linked together using DATA pprts. To do this you can make your own cable or pay 14.99 for the one from Spektrum, pretty DAMN easy to make if you ask me..(this is my mock up cable for testing on bench.

Good picture here of the pin orentation.. Center is negative on all ports. Left port is Positive, and right port is DATA signal.

harder to see, but you get the idea, the top row on a AR7200 is all data port, NOT POWER.. Bottom is Negative, middle is positive.

Powered up and working !!

Radio on, showing signal and the model.

First Telemetry screen after scrolling to the right.

Second picture to the right.

Min & max voltages,

Main battery voltage, ( the one im monitoring ) This voltage is just a 2 cell lipo, IN the end it will be the main 6s4400 battery.

To play with this more, i went into the Telemetry options & alarms and set a voltage to see if it worked. AND POOF it did.!

So now for now, i can setup a voltage to give me 80% on my cell’s as has been mentioned you want to do 3.80v per cell. So we take 3.8V X 6 we get 22.8. This will be my alarm, maybe just a little bit more so i have time to land..

The better radio such as the Jeti, i’ll be able to set %’s for 50% battery left 30% and then 20% then land..

Thoughts ? if you had it would you use it ?

Does any one else think this is going to catch on ? or are people just sticking to timers on their radio ?